Science Says: The Best Pajamas Are No Pajamas

Prepare to step outside your personal pajama comfort zone and give the birthday suit a try—scientists say that going to bed stark naked could be key to getting a good night's rest. The National Sleep Foundation identifies the ideal temperature for superior sleep as being around 65 degrees and says that the body's way of auto-regulating its core temperature, instinctively working toward ideal rest, can be impeded by jammies. "When your temperature rises, your body produces sweat that is meant to cool you down as it evaporates off your skin. If pajamas keep you too warm, you might find yourself damp and uncomfortable," NSF literature explains. No Ph.D. is required to understand that being woken by sticky skin and the feeling of being overheated is no way to sleep soundly. The process of getting drowsy is also linked to temperature, with the human body designed to lose heat from its central core 90 minutes or so before falling asleep. It's that cooling that helps trigger most of us into yawning and eyeing the bedroom door (studies show insomniacs consistently have higher core temperatures than normal sleepers, and the issue of thermoregulation might contribute in large part to their sleeping issues).

Prepare to step outside your personal pajama comfort zone and give the birthday suit a try—scientists say that going to bed stark naked could be key to getting a good night's rest. The National Sleep Foundation identifies the ideal temperature for superior sleep as being around 65 degrees and says that the body's way of auto-regulating its core temperature, instinctively working toward ideal rest, can be impeded by jammies.

"When your temperature rises, your body produces sweat that is meant to cool you down as it evaporates off your skin. If pajamas keep you too warm, you might find yourself damp and uncomfortable," NSF literature explains. No Ph.D. is required to understand that being woken by sticky skin and the feeling of being overheated is no way to sleep soundly.

The process of getting drowsy is also linked to temperature, with the human body designed to lose heat from its central core 90 minutes or so before falling asleep. It's that cooling that helps trigger most of us into yawning and eyeing the bedroom door (studies show insomniacs consistently have higher core temperatures than normal sleepers, and the issue of thermoregulation might contribute in large part to their sleeping issues).

If you're partnered up, the physical contact that comes with sleeping au natural can also be good for your relationship (even when it's the nonsexy, I'm-so-exhausted-I-can't-look-at-you kind of night). "When you and your partner both sleep naked, the skin-to-skin contact will release the feel-good hormone [oxytocin]," Fran Walfish, Psy.D., told Medical Daily, leading couples to feel more connected.